"No," he replied. "I lives in a other houses." "Oh!" exclaimed Barbara, aghast at his command of English. "What is your name?" "Ishikichi," he said succinctly. "And will you tell me what you are doing, Ishikichi?" A small hand from behind his back produced a tiny bamboo cage in which was a bell-cricket. As he held it out, the insect chirped like an elfin cymbal. "Find more one," he said laconically. "And what shall you do with them, I wonder." He took one foot from its clog and wriggled bare toes in the grass. "Give him to new little sister," he said. "So you have a new little sister!" exclaimed Barbara. "How fine that must be!" A glaze of something like disappointment spread over the diminutive face. "Small like," he said. "More better want a brother to play with me." "Maybe you might exchange her for a brother," she hazarded, but the cropped head shook despondently: "I think no can now," he said. "We have use her four days." Barbara laughed outright, a peal of silvery sound that echoed across the garden--then suddenly drew back. A man on horseback was passing across the drive toward the main gate of the compound. It was Daunt, bareheaded, his handsome tanned face flushed with exercise, the breeze ruffling his moist, curling hair. She flashed him a smile as his riding-crop flew to his brow in salute. The sun glinted from its Damascene handle, wrought into the long, grotesque muzzle of a fox. Between the edsges of the blue silk curtains she saw him turn in the saddle to look back before he disappeared. She stood peering out a long time toward the low white cottage across the clipped lawn. The laughter had left her eyes, and gradually over her face grew a wave of rich color. She dropped the curtain and caught her hands to her cheeks. For an instant she had seemed to feel the pressure of strong arms, the touch of coarse tweed vividly reminiscent of a pipe. What had come over her? The one day that had dawned at sea in golden fire and died in crimson and purple over a file of convicts--the dreaming night with its temple bell striking through silver mist and violet shadows--these had left her the same Barbara that she had always been. But somewhere, somehow, in the closed gulf between the then and now, something new and strange and sweet had waked in her--something that the sound of a voice in the garish sunlight had started into clamorous reverberations. She sat down suddenly and hid her face. CHAPTER XV A FACE IN THE CROWD They rode to the parade-ground--Barbara and Patricia with the Ambassador, behind his pair of Kentucky grays--along wide streets grown festive overnight and buzzing with _rick'sha_ and pedestrians. Every gateway held crossed flags bearing the blood-red rising-sun, and colored paper lanterns were swung in festoons along the gaudy blocks of shops, as wide open as tiers of cut honeycomb.